Understanding Multiage Education

Sandra J. Stone, Kathleen G. Burriss

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367197773
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429516368
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Presenting a compelling case for changing our system of education from a graded, curriculum-centered approach to a multiage, child-centered approach, Understanding Multiage Education is a comprehensive exploration of the philosophy and foundations of multiage education.

Veteran educators Stone and Burriss examine the "why" of multiage education, exploring how multiage classrooms' structure, environment, strategies, and assessments unfold and complement the multiage philosophy and pedagogy. Delineating the differences between a standard and a mixed-age approach, each chapter features Inside Insights, short vignettes, case studies, examples of multiage in practice and discussion questions challenging readers to engage with the core concepts and examine how we might define success in a multiage classroom.

Designed for graduate-level students of early childhood, elementary, and general education courses, as well as experienced practitioners, this is an essential guide for anyone interested in understanding the rationale, implementation, and benefits of multiage education.

1

SYSTEM: GRADED OR MULTIAGE EDUCATION?

If one, and only one, defining issue was chosen regarding multiage education, it would be the issue distinguishing between graded education and multiage education in terms of what is best for children, what is best for their well-being – physically, socially, emotionally, morally, aesthetically, and cognitively. Many of the conflicts that arise during the implementation of multiage classrooms hinge on the deep philosophical differences between these two systems of education and, ultimately, what we value for our children’s lives. Understanding these differences clarifies the issue. How are the principles framing the graded system and the multiage system of learning and teaching different? How do the graded system and the multiage system differ with regard to interacting and relating with children? How does the role of the teacher differ between the graded and multiage system? This chapter gives an overview of the two very different systems of education.

The Graded System

Mechanical

The graded system was established at a time in our history when we were undergoing the Industrial Revolution, which produced great changes in the lives of people around the world. The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain during the late 1700s and spread to other parts of Europe. The Revolution arrived in North America in the early 1800s, and by the mid-1800s, industrialization was widespread throughout Europe and the Northeastern United States (Rippa, 1997; Robinson, 2015a; Stone, 2004).

With the development of factories also came the development of factory organization. Managers who standardized the mass production of goods oversaw factories. The factory workers had little, if any, voice in the process. Impersonalization, monotonous work, low wages, and long hours were the sacrifices made for the goal of greater production of goods. For the most part, workers accepted the routines and the disciplines of manufacturing even though the quality of their traditional life had changed dramatically (Dewey, 1938, 1966; Robinson, 2015a; Stone, 2010).

The organization of the factories became the organization for schooling. In the United States, the graded system began when Horace Mann visited Prussia in Europe in 1843. Prussia had established a new schooling system, which paralleled the organizational patterns of the Industrial Revolution (Day & Yarbrough, 1998). Children were segregated by age and moved through a graded system of education. Mann saw this model as innovative and practical, particularly because of the increasing needs of urban education in America. Organizing children by age made reasonable sense to him. Large numbers of children in the cities allowed for children to be divided by age and taught by a single teacher. Thus, Mann proposed a “factory-like” model for schools in the United States. He saw the one-room school of the day as archaic and questioned how one teacher could effectively instruct children of different ages and abilities in one room. To him, the one-room schoolhouse was simply inefficient practice. In manufacturing, it was more efficient to separate out carding, spinning, and weaving to different individuals than to have one person do all three. He saw this principle of “division of labor” as efficient practice for schools, as it was for industry. Mann borrowed what he perceived as successful manufacturing practice and designed schools around these principles (Cremin, 1957; Rippa, 1997; Robinson, 2015a; Stone, 1997, 2017).

By 1860, the lock-step graded system of education was used by the majority of public and private schools. Similar to the manufacturing model, schools became standardized through age of entry, sequential grade levels, and grade-level curriculum. Children became impersonalized products on a manufacturing belt, moving from grade to grade. If a child was deemed defective, the child was placed “back on the belt” to repeat the same grade until he or she passed inspection (grade-level norms). If a child passed inspection (grade-level norms) then he or she could proceed to the next grade on the education-manufacturing belt (Stone, 2004, 2010). However, in the 1890s, not everyone was satisfied with this “new” method of education. Dewey criticized the system for its mechanical management of children en mass with its graded curriculum and uniform methods (Dewey, 1938, 1966). Dewey was genuinely concerned about the well-being of children who became products on the conveyor belt of education.

Behaviorist

Interestingly, coupled with the graded system, which was built on a manufacturing model for efficiency of education, a complementary theory of learning proposed in the early 1900s began to take root in the mechanical bed of the graded system. The philosophy of behaviorism (i.e., Pavlov, Watson, Hull, Skinner) was a logical approach, a scientific approach to explaining and changing behavior (Boghossian, 2006; Gray, 2013; Moore, 2011; Roopnarine & Johnson, 1993). Behaviorism described learning as a stimulus-response action. This same scientific approach was used successfully in other sciences such as biology, chemistry, and geology. It assumed that behavior is lawful, that cause-effect relationships are finite, and, with appropriate technology, children’s behavior/learning could be controlled and managed. This theory suggested that by engineering education, socially and physically, educators could control interactions and improve education and children’s development (Moore, 2011; Roopnarine & Johnson, 1993).

The science of this theory soon embedded itself within the sequential grade levels and grade-level curriculum. Teachers assumed they could now scientifically prepare behavioral objectives for lesson plans, providing instruction for maximum cause and effect relationships. The behavioral objective focused on “outcomes,” which were both observable and measurable and included criteria for judging the acceptable performance. The behavioral objectives were designed to scientifically guide instruction and environment (cause) and promote acceptable outcomes (effect). The inherent structure of the graded system openly supported this theory of learning. If a child did not experience changed behaviors, then the child would “repeat” (retention) the procedure until there was evidence of change (learning). Grades and promotion were the motivators for this factory model and learning science. Although criticisms were voiced regarding the “conditioning” of students, the efficient management of children and the product outcomes took precedence. This is not to say that all the components of this learning theory were misguided, but that the focus was more on an impersonal production of prescribed acquired behaviors for all children, rather than a personal construction of knowledge by each unique individual.

Characteristics of the Graded System

Some of the defining characteristics of the graded system included:

1. Children were segregated by age and grade.
2. Children moved, or did not move, through grades (promotion and retention) based on performance (grade-level expectations, standards).
3. Performance was usually indicated by a letter or number grade on a report card and/or performance on a standardized test.
4. Curriculum was arbitrarily produced, usually prescribed by grade level, and based on grade-level expectations/standards. Curriculum was taught “to” the students.
5. Children were judged or evaluated on how well they mastered the curriculum or standards. Children were considered to be successfully educated if they met, or exceeded, grade-level expectations or standards. Children were considered failures if they did not meet the criteria.

In other words, the impersonalization of manufacturing in the industrialized age found its way into the schooling of children, becoming an often impersonalized, automated, mass-produced education where children became mere products measured by standards for acceptance and failure (Abeles, 2016; Bailey, Werth, Allen, & Sutherland, 2016; Robinson, 2015a; Martin, 1995; Stone, 2010).

Robinson notes the strong roots of the manufacturing model of the Industrial Revolution has the goal to:

produce identical versions of the same products. Items that don’t conform are thrown away or reprocessed. Systems of mass education were designed to mold students to certain requirements. Because of that, not everyone makes it through the system, and some are rejected by it. Industrial processes demand compliance with specific rules and standards. This principle is still applied to education. The standards movement is based on compliance in curriculum, teaching, and assessment.

(Robinson, 2015a, p. 35)

Thompson (2014) sees our current graded system as a something leftover from the industrial revolution and advocates for a shift away from a mechanical model if we want to prepare our children for the future. Robinson (2015b) agrees by saying “the dominant culture has its roots in another time … it has to change because the world is changing so rapidly, and we need people to be educated differently now to the way we thought was suitable for industrialism” (p. 23). Suarez-Orozco (2005) believes that “an intellectually curious, cognitively autonomous, socially responsible, democratically engaged, productive, and globally conscious member of the human family in the 21st century cannot be educated in the 20th-century factory model of education” (p. 212). Abeles concurs:

We are inheritors of an outmoded education system, designed for an age when most decent students could anticipate a lifetime of reliable industrial or agricultural work. The world that today’s graduates enter is entirely different, demanding not regimentation but invention.

(Abeles, 2016, p. 156)

INSIDE INSIGHT 1.1

THE PEDAGOGY OF MULTIAGE EDUCATION

Multiage education is based on the “pedagogy of learning” rather than the “pedagogy of teaching.” Thus, multiage education is a child-centered pedagogy (Aldridge, 1992; Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). Learning originates with the child; the child is the motivating “center of the overall learning process” (Alghamdi, Ernest, & Hafiz, 2018, p. 43). Every child’s learning is supported through developmentally appropriate practices (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). A child-centered approach to learning recognizes that all children, even same-age children, are different – cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically. Each child generates his or her individually unique developmental timetable and learning continuum. Therefore, the education of the child is in harmony with the way the child uniquely develops. This pedagogy is predominately founded in constructivist and social learning theories (Piaget, 1952; Vygotsky, 1978). Additionally, based on Vygotsky’s writings, multiage education is supported by social constructivist, social interactionist, and sociocultural points of view.

As a social constructivist, Vygotsky (1978) conceived knowledge as constructed by each individual through social interactions (Ankrum, Genest, & Morewood, 2017; Bodrova & Leong, 2006; Pritchard & Woollard, 2010; Wells, 2007). This means knowledge is socially mediated (Vygotsky, 1978; Wortham, 2009).

The social interactionist view focuses on the intentional nature of the child’s participation in social interactions (Christie, Enz, & Vukelich, 2014; Hargraves, 2014). As children of mixed ages engage with one another, the social experiences help shape children’s understanding of the world and the way it works, the way society constructs meaning through language and actions, and influences children’s internal process of thinking. The child is purposeful in his or her interactions with others in order to construct meaning; this is central to the social interactionist view (Christie et al., 2014).

The sociocultural point of view, grounded in social constructivist theory, examines social interactions and collaborative learning practices. The sociocultural context provides a rich resource for children’s thinking, as they theorize through processes that are interpersonal as their working theories advance (Hargraves, 2014). Sociocultural contexts also extend to equity for equal learning opportunities regarding cultural and linguistic diversity (Lee, Butler, & Tippins, 2007; Leggett & Newman, 2017). Thus, this pedagogy broadens learning experiences to include rich opportunities for children of diverse abilities, cultural backgrounds, and socioeconomic conditions to learn from one another (Krechevsky, Mardell, Rivard, & Wilson, 2013; Lim & Renshaw, 2001; Nieto, 2013, 2017; Steele, 2001). Sociocultural theory embraces the ethics of inclusiveness and a shift away from inequitable school structures (Guo, 2015). Principles of social justice and equity naturally support the multiage, child-centered philosophy.

Research in child development based on Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s works, guides the understandings of the foundational theories, which value the nonlinear, “holistic nature of human development” (Adams, 2015, p. 331). Piaget’s cognitive-development theory, a process referred to frequently as child-centered, embodies the child’s active involvemen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of boxes
• Preface
• 1. System: Graded or Multiage Education?
• 2. Benefits: Why Multiage Education?
• 3. Structure: Is It a Multiage or Combination Class?
• 4. Learning: Strategies Versus Lesson Plans?
• 5. Learning: Goals Versus Objectives?
• 6. Role of the Teacher: Facilitator or Instructor?
• 7. Curriculum: Are Multiage Groupings Too Diverse to Teach Effectively?
• 8. Assessment: What Is Appropriate?
• 9. Standards: Is There a Conflict?
• 10. Self-Contained or Team Teaching? Which Classroom Structure Is Best For Children?
• 11. Mixed-Age Grouping: Is It Really Important?
• 12. Classroom Space: “Curriculum Tasks” or “Learning Environment?”
• 13. Defining Success: What Do We Really Want for Our Children?
• 14. Change: Why Is It So Difficult?
• 15. Change: What Are the Possibilities?
• 16. The Vision: The Future of Multiage Education
• About the Authors
• Index